CHAPTER ONE

The old grey plane soared gently through the noonday sky. Years before she had been one of the Queens of Travel bearing a famous marquee indeed, traversing the air lanes of the whole world, covering the globe wherever Man travelled, carrying the elite of commerce, the stars of the theatre world and the films. In those days it had been a prestige symbol to fly in a plane such as this. Now she was old and worn, a relic from a bygone age, ousted by screaming jets and the insane desire to “get there” faster and faster for why? What DO people do with all the time they “save”?

The old twin-engines murmured softly, a pleasant enough sound, like giant bees on a summer day. Now the old plane was on a placid routine flight from Vancouver to Calgary. Last week, perhaps, she may have been flying in the Northern Territories where the temperature was far, far below zero, and the blinding snow would make anything but instrument flight impossible. Next week, maybe, she would take oil prospectors to some of the remote oil sands in the search for more and more power by a power-mad nation, for a power-mad world. But now the former Queen of the Air was a charter plane, a poor old hack going anywhere at the whim of any customer with a few dollars to spare.

Soon the foothills of the Rockies came into view rising, ever rising, until they soared into the highest peaks of that immense range stretching across the world. Now the air was becoming turbulent and the plane bounced and tossed amid the snow-clad ranges, for here was the region where the snow never left the highest mountain peaks.

Miss Taddy Rampa uttered a yowl of outraged protest and looked as though her last moment had come. Miss Cleo Rampa swallowed hard and put on her bravest I Can-Take-It look as she opened wide her big blue eyes as she stared hard at the rocky ground so far below.

But why the flight? Why yet another move? It all started a few months before in Vancouver.

June in Vancouver is usually such a pleasant month, a month when Nature starts to come fully awake and the weather is good, and when the sea has a smiling sparkle, when people are busy with their boats. Tourists start coming, and it is usually a time when all the storekeepers are sharpening up their wits hoping to match those of the tourists. But this June, this day in June, was not so good after all. You'll have had the same type of day, one of those days when everything but EVERYTHING goes wrong. Still, you are lucky, you know, you have those days every so often, or, as the saying goes, “Once in a blue moon.” But supposing this type of day lasted for weeks, for months, or even for years, supposing there were patterns? Probably most people who are “in the public eye” get trouble with the moronic few who seem to exist solely to cause trouble for others.

A bus driver friend of mine told me that he and his fellows are always being persecuted by frigid old biddies who think that they are the “Lords Anointed” and are entitled to special consideration from bus drivers they think the buses are their own private chariots. And when a bus driver politely points out that the buses are for the use of everyone the old biddy will rush off to complain and try to lose the bus driver his job. Authors get people like that to persecute them and to prevent them from being complacent or self-satisfied. I was going to tell you all about a series of events which caused me to leave British Columbia, but conditions decreed otherwise.

The old Author sat in his wheelchair and watched complacently while a typescript was being bundled up. Another book finished, the fifteenth this time, and the old man, just out from the hospital, was smiling to himself with satisfaction because this was a book which would stir no controversy, this was a book which a publisher could take without having any qualms, without having any urgent stirrings in those lower regions and to which publishers seem to be remarkably prone.

The typescripts for another country also was interested were taken away to be mailed, and the old Author went about the rather difficult task of everyday living in the hope that soon he would be able to consider yet another book as had been asked for by so many interested readers.

Time went on, as it usually does, and eventually there came a gloomy message from the Agent in England saying that the typescript was not suitable for England. It seemed a fantastic state of affairs to the old Author because as was usually the case he had had the typescript read by a panel of twelve people to make sure there was nothing which could rule even the tenderest feathers, and all twelve had insisted that this was perhaps the most peaceful book and the “smoothest” book. But the Great God Publisher who sat upon the Golden Throne and wielded a whip laden with old lead type did not like the look. Although the matter had already been dealt with this time the edict came down from “the One Above” that apparently there must be nothing about police, sex, prisons, abortions, religion well, there mustn't be anything about all the things I had written about. So it caused quite a problem.

At about that same moment there came a cable from another publisher who was highly elated with the book. He was well satisfied, he cabled to say that he wanted to sign the contract then and there. And another publisher expressed his interest in the book without any alterations. So it seems that in this year and age the English people appear to have rather tender susceptibilities. But we mustn't go on about this. I am told the publisher wants questions answered, so let's get on with some of those, shall we?

Well, just about everyone does astral travel when they go to sleep. The astral body goes off, and the physical body is meant to remain more or less passive, twisting and turning a bit, of course, in order that muscles may not be strained by being contracted for too long in one position. But sometimes a person who is in the astral will be so engrossed in his or her activities in that astral stage that he or she will unconsciously relinquish part of the control suppressing the activities of the physical back on Earth. And so the physical tends by “sympathetic reaction” to follow the astral body, and so we get a case of somnambulism, or sleep walking. The person gets out of bed and just ambles about, and it is better not to awaken such a person because if he is awakened then the sudden shock can bring back the astral body with yet another shock which makes the combination of astral and physical quite bilious. Sleep walkers who have suddenly been awakened will certainly agree with me on that point.

Another question is, “Is the Land of the Golden Light a fourth dimensional world?”

Well, yes it is a fourth dimensional world while we are in this third dimensional world. But when we are in the fourth dimensional world the Land of the Golden Light will be in the fifth dimensional world, and so on. You see, when you move upwards the stage above you is always more golden, that is, it has a more tenuous atmosphere and a higher frequency of oscillation (why don't I just call it “vibration”?)

Somebody is quite interested in this fourth dimensional world because he says, “When you die to the fourth dimensional world where does your astral body go?”

You always have to have a body, after all, think how stupid you would be if you were trying to get about and you hadn't got a body of any land, if you were just pure thought. It wouldn't be much good to you, would it? So down here on Earth we have a physical body. Now if you can imagine what we were like on the second dimension, then what is now our physical body would then have approximated to the astral body. So we moved from the second dimension into the third, which is on this Earth, and then we occupied more solidly the Earth body which was in effect the astral body of the second dimension. So when we leave this Earth we shall vacate our Earth body and then we shall go to the astral world and live in the astral body which is then our physical body. Do you follow that? Wherever we are at that moment we have a physical body, and, of course, on each stage our body will be absolutely as solid as all those other bodies which are around us. We build up energy for a new astral body from what we are doing on what is at that moment our “Earth”, or the world of our physical existence, so that eventually when you get to the oh, what shall I say? eighth dimension, you will have to live in the eighth dimensional physical body while your actions and your life force will generate the ninth physical body which then, of course, will be your astral. And that astral body will be in close touch with your Overself which is much, much, much higher.

Here's another question about astral travelling. It is, “When you are astral travelling how do you go about finding the zones in which astral cats, dogs, horses, etc., live?”

Well, you don't have to go about finding it. If you are a lover of some particular animal that animal will come to your own “zone” and will actually invite you to come and visit him or her in his or her own district or hometown. Remember that when you get beyond this Earth things are very, very different. Animals are not just stupid creatures who can't talk and can't do anything. Actually, humans are the dumb clucks because animals can and do talk by telepathy. Humans for the most part have to make uncouth sounds which they term a language, whereas any animal can do telepathy in any language. To make it clearer I will say that if you want to go to a particular zone and you have a right, or a reason, to be in that particular zone, you can get there merely by thinking about it. It's as simple as that.

Well, I thought, as I said before, that we would move from British Columbia. We had had a lot of difficulty in that Province and so it is always good to go to new places, and that is what we decided to do.

The Government of British Columbia didn't help either. The Income Tax people were persecuting me wanting to know why I claimed an allowance on a wheelchair; does a person sit in a wheelchair all day for the pleasure of it? And wheelchairs wear out. So the stupid asses of the Income Tax people got an “earful” from me, and I had to get three Medical Certificates, two from Montreal and one from Vancouver, to say that I had been using a wheelchair for years and was not using one for pleasure. So, all things considered, we came to the definite conclusion that the sooner we got out of Vancouver the better for our health and our peace of mind. We thought and thought, and looked at maps, and then for some quite unknown reason we settled on Alberta. From the data we were able to get we found that Edmonton was too cold and too windy and too insular. Lethbridge, nearer the American border, was too much of a farming community where the word “insular” probably would not even be known. So we settled on Calgary. The local airlines were not at all helpful. They were not interested in taking a disabled person in a wheelchair and two Siamese cats. So we went into the matter very thoroughly, we worked out costs of fares, we wondered whether we should get an ambulance to drive us from Vancouver to Calgary, and eventually with the help of a friend we managed to get in touch with a very good Air Charter firm. We were able to settle for a quite reasonable sum for the trip which compared very favourably indeed with what it would have cost by ambulance by road.

The Great Day came and at last our lease was terminated. I trundled aboard a thing known as a Handi-Bus, a thing which has a ramp up which a wheelchair is pushed into a sort of empty truck or bus, and there the wheelchair is strapped very securely to the floor, the ramp is folded up outside the back, and friends or relatives of the victim get into a taxi and then the cavalcade moves off. We went through Vancouver to Vancouver Airport. There we met the first obstacle.

It had been arranged that a forklift should be available to lift me complete with electrically-powered wheelchair into the big old plane. Well, the forklift wasn't there, at that part of the Airport they didn't have one! I sat there in the back of the Handi-Bus, and eventually I got fed up with the whole idea so while people were milling around discussing what they should do, how to get me and the wheelchair in the plane, I moved forward in the chair to the foot of the ladder leading up into the body of the plane. There I managed to pull myself into the plane by the power of my arms alone. My legs are nothing to boast about, but with my arms I could still toss a heavy man over my shoulders it would probably give me a heart attack it would be worth it!

So I got myself into that old plane, and with crutches managed to move to a seat along one side. Then a load of men lifted the wheelchair into place, and the others of the little party got in, together with the luggage. The plane roared and roared, and eventually we got clearance from the Airport and rushed down the runway and leapt into the air. And some of these old planes do indeed leap into the air.

We took a climbing turn over the harbour and then made a 300 degree turn toward the Rockies.

The mountains were beautiful. Cleo was fascinated in looking about her. Taddy was continually distressed at the thought that if there were any more bumps she might lose her lunch, always Taddy's first thought. And it is not so easy for an aging Girl Cat to find her “air-going legs” when the plane is bouncing and jouncing all over the sky.

The time dragged slowly by, it always seems such a waste sitting in a plane doing nothing except look out, and all the time beneath us there were the cruel jagged rocks with their high points enrobed in snow, and lower down their flanks the vivid blue of deep, deep water. Occasionally there was a sight of a small farming community served by a minute airstrip, or the sight of float planes taking off from those mountain lakes where no airship could be managed.

The light came on and the sign lit up, “Fasten seat belts-no smoking.” Well, no smoking didn't apply to us, but we fastened our seat belts and grabbed hold of the cats who, for safety, we now put in baskets.

The plane slanted down, passed through a layer of cloud, and then we emerged over the foothills on the other side of the Rockies. Below us was the Foothills Hospital which a year later I was to enter as a patient. To the left of us was the big University of Calgary. The plane swooped on getting lower and lower. We looked with interest at the city which was going to be our new home; we saw the Calgary Tower, we saw the skyscrapers of downtown, and we saw the twisting river, or perhaps it should be rivers the Bow and the Elbow as they threaded a labyrinthine way through the city, down from the mountains and on toward Lethbridge, rivers so silted up that they were not able to be used by pleasure boats because of the eddies, because of the sandbanks and because the Police didn't want the rivers to be used!

Below us the Airport loomed. The pilot nodded his head in satisfaction and the plane tilted even more steeply. There came the juddering rumble as the wheels met the runway and speeded up. Soon the tail dropped and we trundled along gently into the area of the charter company.

Here conditions were different. Everything was ready. As soon as the plane came to a stop in front of the offices an elderly gentleman drove a forklift truck to the side of the old plane and the pilot and co-pilot grabbed me and my wheelchair quite tightly as though they feared that I might escape or fall out or something. But I am used to wheelchair managing, and I soon drove out through the door of the plane and straight on to the forklift platform, but even here I was secured; the pilot and the co-pilot held on to me and held on to the sides of the forklift while gently we were lowered to the ground.

The question of payment. Ah! We always have to pay for our jaunts, do we not? And so it was that first we paid for our trip and then another Handi-Bus backed to a stop in front of me. The ramp was lowered with a fearsome rattle, and I drove my wheelchair up into the body. And then the rains came down! It rained harder at that moment and for the rest of that day than it has rained at any time since in Calgary. We had a wet welcome.

Once again my wheelchair was very securely strapped to the floor. All our luggage was slung in and then we roared off along the Airport road, over the river bridge, and into the city of Calgary itself. By now the rush-hour traffic was starting and the rain was coming down harder and harder. Eventually we reached our destination and a group of people rushed out, grabbed our luggage and rushed inside into the shelter of the building. Slowly the driver unshackled the chair from all its restraints and I drove down the ramp and into the house also. Our first sight of Calgary was a wet one.

Calgary is a friendly city, a new city, a city which has not yet grown cynical and uncaring. After a year in Calgary I can say yes, it is a nice place indeed for people who can get about, but there are disadvantages; the curbs here are very high indeed, not suitable for wheelchair users, and the roads too have a very great camber so that a wheelchair tends to run toward the gutter all the time. The next question I am going to answer is one I don't want to answer, but one which I have had great pressure to answer. It is about the hollow Earth.

But first before you all start writing to me about quis custodiet ipsos custodes let me say my bit about the Crummy Cops who RUIN our civilization. Ready? Then here it is:

“Who has custody of the custodians?” Who polices the police? “Absolute power corrupts “ But does not the police now have “absolute power”? And ARE they corrupt? The Law states that a person is deemed innocent until proved guilty; the police automatically regard everyone as GUILTY!

A person has the right to be confronted by his accuser, yet the police do not even tell a person of what he IS accused until they, by trickery, have forced him to admit something.

In my personal opinion the police are out of touch; no one likes policemen they live isolated in their barracks or in their secluded groups aloof from those they should know. There is no substitute for the old fashioned Man on the Beat.

An old Irish policeman, who is a very dear friend, pounded his beat for years before he retired. He KNEW everyone in his area, and could prevent troubles before they became serious. He was an unpaid family counsellor, giving advice, friendly warnings, and only “taking in” an offender when it became really essential. He had and has the respect and affection of the whole community.

The old-type policeman was welcomed into the houses on his beat. Now policemen stay enclosed in their cars . and lose touch with people.

Now the police divide the world into two classes, the “goodies” and the “baddies,” with the police only being the “goodies.”

A few years ago the police were courteous, considerate and helpful. Then a policeman making an enquiry would say, “Ah then, Mrs. Blank, and can I see the Good Man? I hear he's been after the poteen a bit too much. Sleeping it off, is he? Then I'll call around later.”

Now the police move in pairs, as if afraid to move alone. Now they thrust their way in without any regard whatever for the conditions and circumstances. “R.C.M.P” they mutter, shoving a badge at one, and entering uninvited.

“A man is innocent until proved guilty.” But the police treat everyone as though he were guilty merely because he has attracted police notice! Of course, if a man was seen to kill another, then naturally let the police “go in shooting.” Surely, though, in routine enquiry matters, the police should show tact? What if an invalid is in the bathroom or having treatment, do the police HAVE to force their unwelcome way in? They DO we know that from personal experience!

The police are now hated, isolated, living in a dream of colourful uniforms, horse manure and stamping feet. It is time to re-organize them, show them that they are not God's Chosen but SERVANTS of the public.

Teach the police courtesy, politeness, manners, let them chase ( and catch ) criminals, and let ordinary decent law-abiding citizens alone. Only then will they regain the respect which most certainly is lacking now.

And the worst offenders, in my opinion, are the Mounties with their arrogant posturing. Like many others, having been senselessly harassed by the police, I say, “Help the police? No sir! I would not do a THING to help them they TURN on you!” And they HAVE!!